CRIME PROGRAM A WASTE

Editor:

Re: CRIME program to continue for now, Tuesday, Aug. 9 Tribune.

"CRIME-subsidizing program to continue for now" would be a more
accurate headline.

The people most pleased about this "eradication" policy are the 90-95
per cent of growers who will never be caught.

This colossal waste of time and money is not only failing to fix
things, it is, in fact, outrageously counterproductive.

If the police busted twice as many grow ops this year as last year,
they would still only get about 20 per cent of them. One fifth.
Probably less. And every time they bust one grow op -- indoor, outdoor,
small or big -- all they do is make the ones they don't catch that much
more valuable.

Not only is the illegality of pot the very thing that makes growing it
so lucrative, the police are actually subsidizing the entire industry
by busting only a minority of the growers.

The whole thing is a scam and the police know it, too.

They continue this game because regular crime keeps going down every
year and they need to justify their continued existence.

Funny how they complain about a "lack of resources" when women and
kids go missing, but they always have a dozen officers to pose for the
cameras with pot plants in their hands.

They also like to tell the public that this is somehow interfering
with organized crime or preventing pot from reaching people's kids,
but informed people like me know that the exact opposite is true.

Every year the cops bust more and more people and, every year,
organized criminals grow stronger and pot becomes more widely available.

Is this the Canada you want to live in? A country where government,
cops, and the media lie to the public and help gangsters and deprive
people of valuable medicine and billions in tax revenue in the process?

Because that is the Canada you live in right now.

Russell Barth

Educators For Sensible Drug Policy

federally licensed medical marijuana user,

Nepean, Ont.